Two Eyes Cenote Reticulated

One day she had left the infirmary and never talked about it again. She fell into familiar patterns of work; organizing and stocking and charming nobility. The sallow beneath her eyes returned to dark, black as ever.

There was no time to readjust, and she would not have wanted it anyway. A threat hung over their home.

To the summit above the subterranean palace, the hebsut calls a meeting for @Khusobek and @Meseba. She stands with her chin high, framed on all sides by a rocky portcullis, gaze sweeping out to the distant dunes of the desert in wait.

he and khusobek are called.

immediately, too quickly perhaps, meseba is quick to abandon his task to answer eset's beckons for he is the first to arrive.

words tangle in his throat; softness lingers in his gaze as it touches upon her.

hebsut, he greets in a low rumble instead, bowing his head as he waits.

he was the opposite of meseba in this. equally punctual and now flanking the other mazoi, khusobek was silent.

meseba bowed. his own was smooth, an echo. 

where he sensed the silken way in which meseba regarded their hebsut, his own gaze was affixed to the far wall. a soldier. a captain. a vessel for eset to devour again and again and again in whatever way she saw fit.

She lowers her head in turn, acknowledging each mazoi as they approach.

Meseba’s eyes are raw and watchful, his care a delicate warmth which softened the furrow in her brows. The coy is gratified to see he remains regal and healthy in the weeks that had separated them.

Khusobek would not look at her. Regardless of how it stung, she was not surprised to lose his respect. Twice he had seen her most shameful impasses. Strength would not be inspired from a leader who needed continual saving, and the results of Jodai’s return to Akashingo were still unknown. Eset’s status balanced on a knife’s point.

But empty arms had rekindled her flame. The hebsut was prepared to fight for her leadership. She had mortared herself into these walls, had found her frame by proving what she could devise. The same Gods who had denied her the ingress into womanhood; to marriage and children; now saw she existed only to serve their temples.

Her eyes level firmly between them.

“The fellahin Machiavelli has been released from the cells. He is not a guiltless man, but he is innocent of the crimes which imprisoned him,” she briefs. “Slavers are on their way to reclaim him. They are a threat to all who dwell among us. I do not want bloodshed on our sands, but they must be dispatched.” Smarting still, from the failures, she looked fully to the captain in red.

“Khusobek. You suggested poison before. I believe now it is what we must do.”

he is greeted, and looks out the corner of his eye to the other mazoi who appears to refuse to look at hebsut. there is a soft prickle of meseba's guard hairs, a soundless rumble brewing in his throat; affronted for hebsut. but their issues were not his business to tangle himself in; still, he would protect hebsut with his very life essence from threats domestic or foreign.

his attention drifts back to eset where it lingers as she speaks that machiavelli has been freed from the prisons: not a guiltless man but not guilty of the crimes he was first imprisoned for. she speaks then of slavers that were on their way to collect him. though sheltered from that sort of life in cubhood, he is no longer innocent to such things.

let the slavers take him, let them devour him. let him pay his dues. meseba's inner monologue intones with the golden and cold threading of the father judgement. if machiavelli's heart was weighed against a feather: how would he fare? would Osiris find him guilty? his heart heavy? would he sate ammut's hunger?

hebsut's answer is not the one that meseba thought it should be and disappointment pangs hollowly in his chest: there and chased away in the breadth of moments later.

she suggests using the captain's own suggested methods: poison.

should we invite them in, hebsut? trick them? treat them like guests while offering them poisoned food and wine?

muat-riya's crocodile had no defense against eset. as she spoke, his attention was drawn back to her. he held himself from truly searching the slender curve of her throat for a wasting illness, looked to see if her arms trembled, or her voice shook.

where meseba tensed with rightful indignation, khusobek's gaze was, for a moment, a conflagration of hateful, desperate worry which found its target not in eset, but in the aspect of what had harmed her. he could not more tear nature with his teeth than he could have stopped what occurred that day in the desert, but to see her laid low at all was an affront to the core-heart of khusobek, the throne of his very power which only their hebsut had ever occupied.

"they will expect to be poisoned during a feast. they may expect less to be poisoned by a friendly escort agreeable enough to lead them into the palace itself. we should attempt to waylay them before they reach muat-riya."

sicken the men. kill them while they vomited. bury them in the sand. a swift and brutal end.

More leapt to life in Meseba’s face than she knew to expect, but she found herself gripping to the strength in his commitment, the one that does not discourage this plan for reprisal. All these months, and still the hebsut had to denigrate the servile practices which branded her formative years. His acceptance, it loosens some part of her that had anticipated resistance, for no reason other than it had long been the order of things.

“Yes,” she answers Meseba gratefully after some thought, searching his gaze.

When her eyes turn for Khusobek, a sensation of something dark sinks its teeth. She would be ashamed to admit she wanted the captain with her always, the nearness of him, the confidence he gave her– nothing else. She still had no word for what beat between them, nor could she chance breathing it to life by acknowledging it.

Her mouth tightens. “We will intercept them, if we can. If we cannot, then I will offer myself as their escort.” Their mazoi would be quickly deemed as threats. Eset herself was a slight woman, no more of a hinderance than a gentle breeze. And the child who had inspired more self-preservation had gone.

“Though, a man of high standing will have his food tasted,” the coy continues, hesitating. It is difficult to endorse a plan where so many holes could easily be pierced through it, but the alternative she saw was gritty and violent; acts she was adamant about keeping off their soil. Consternation dries her throat as she glances between both men in a bid for their thoughts.

meseba stands corrected, that poisoning a feast was too easy to guess, that it would be expected. he is not familiar with the world of espionage, of taking down enemies from the shadows ... but instead used to brute force — a terror coming with teeth bared at those who he was fighting.

meseba shifts uncomfortable, jaw clenching as eset declares that she would escort them if their attempt to poison the slavers went wayward. no, the lines of his body etched, speaking the word that would not come from betwixt tightly wired jaw.

he could not and would not defy her but he does not like the idea of leaving her alone with slavers.

could a fellahin not escort them instead? i don't like the idea of putting you at risk, hebsut. he asks suggests quietly.

"hebsut. meseba is correct. as much as they may respect nothing, they will respect a woman even less." he spoke its truth plainly. "slavers have little nobility upon which to rely. any other time, sending yourself into a camp of the unknown would be wise. prudent. but these are monsters. taking you as a trophy would glitter too greatly for them to resist."

"perhaps a compromise. send a servant to taste his food. but do not offer yourself for anything. if we cannot accomplish this, then we are not fit to be your guardians."

“A servant, instead. And which fellahin shall we send- your wife, or your children?” Amber eyes flick sharply from Meseba to Khusobek.

“I will go,” she counters before waiting for a response, chin pulling sharply over her neck in obstinance. “Unless either of you think you can engage with these men.” But she already knew the answer.

khusobek's words bring unwelcome thoughts to the forefront of meseba's mind. the thought of the slavers touching eset, looking at her, breathing in her direction causes his stomach contents to curdle and sour. he swallows thickly back the bile that has risen; jaw clenching tightly as eset digs her heels in.

she would go, her voice ringing with a finality that rings in meseba's head like a striking anvil. he hated the idea, but he would not argue further for the sake of not wishing to be insubordinate.

then we do not fail to stop them in their tracks before they reach us.

was machiavelli worth all of this? all of the danger he was bringing to their doorstep?

i hope he's worth this, for i will not forgive him if something happens to you, hebsut.

his truth spoken, meseba falls into an obedient silence once more.

"as you wish, hebsut." his voice was flat. he would not argue, and certainly not before meseba. ironically it was not until this moment that he felt any kinship with the other mazoi; now they were aligned in protecting eset despite her very great stubbornness.

or perhaps from her very great stubborness.

he decided that if there was a single foot placed out of gait. these slavers would find themselves in that thorned rope. khusobek had enjoyed using it, despite the flicker of guilt and true self-revulsion; the fear and the silence had fed something in him that eset had abandoned.

abandoned. yes.

"has this poison already been procured, or would you rather not know?"

Mind held in silence, she looks deeply into the unquestionable warmth in Meseba’s face. He did not push her so much as press gently. 

“You won't let anything happen,” her lips are tight but her fallen ears lift with surety, for she trusted the mazoi, both with his intentions and his efficiency. He did not need to believe Machiavelli– he just needed to keep him alive.

Before her Khusboek’s brow is heavy and she tries to look unconcerned about it, steeling herself also against the mention of poison, “Machiavelli has it. I imagine you will know the adequate quantities.”

Khusboek she trusted with this– to do it and do it right.

she is confident in him, in them and though it should bring reassurance to meseba, it does not quite warm him as it should have. poison? he is not sure of. has never used such a thing before. there are variables he does not know how to calculate, and thus must rely on the captain of the guard to find all those variables.

he falls quiet as questions are asked and answers are given: that Machiavelli has the poison — of course he does, thinks meseba with a small spear of ice in his belly.

his peace spoken, he is a silent sentry; a bounty hunter awaiting the go-ahead.

machiavelli? over whom eset had chastised him; upon whom he had worked cruelties? that servant?

he held his peace and the lashing iron of his tongue. "when shall i seek him out, hebsut?" was there a timeframe that could coddle her utter stubbornness in this regard?

khusobek saw his own unfairness; he tried to temper the beating bellows of his scorned heart and his valid worry. he did not own eset. 

he had only wanted to be owned by her. now once more he was only a tool in a pretty hand, and the crocodile resented this mirroring vignette.

Meseba falls silent, his face grown unknowably hard. Khusobek, too, voices no further contest, but she recognizes the roiling in his ice. She kept herself from feeling foolish– a child peering into the adult world.

She was hebsut.

“Now, please,” and she dismisses Meseba as well to go with him. The safety of Muat-riya was in their palms.